Tuesday April 18th Beloit City Council Meeting

Beloit City Council

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

By Terry Bailey

The Beloit City Council met at City Hall on Tuesday April 18 to conduct the business of the City. All Councilors were present with the exception of Lloyd Littrell. Also in attendance were Mayor Tom Naasz, City Administrator Jason Rabe, City Attorney Katie Schroeder, and City Clerk Amanda Lomax.

The Councilors noted the work being done on East Main and on Court Street between Mill and Hersey. All were in agreement that the work will improve the appearance of the City.

Jason Rabe reported on the recent organizing meeting for the Healthy Eating Active Lifestyle (HEAL) committee. He said the planning meeting was one in which everyone talked about their vision for the future for a healthier Beloit. He said it was a positive group and members shared a common vision of creating bike trails, hiking paths and so forth that would connect the entire town;

Rabe said he has had positive interactions with the EPA regarding the quality of water provided to the citizens of Beloit. He has shared the long range plans the City has developed to “fix” the problem of water not meeting quality standards. The EPA officials are pleased with the direction the City is headed. Rabe said he and Katie Schroeder will meet with the KDHE in Topeka on Monday to discuss the situation with the water of Beloit and their plans to improve water quality.

The Councilors voted unanimously to authorize the sale and conveyance of certain property to Beloit Medical Building, LLC. It was noted that the new Medical Center Building will soon be observing its 20th anniversary.

The Council gave approval for Beloit’s participation in the First Impressions Program. This is sponsored by K-State and is a program where two communities exchange visitation groups to visit and gain a first impression of the community and then report their findings. Beloit will partner with Clay Center. The team Beloit will send to Clay Center will be Andrew Grabon, Julie Rabe, Brandy Zimmer, and Mandy Fincham. Understandably, the names of the team visiting Beloit will remain anonymous. The program will be under the direction of Heather Hartman.

The Council approved Kevin Mickey to the Port Library Board.

Having addressed all the items on the printed agenda the business meeting was adjourned.

The work session was then call to order.

The topic of the work session dealt with allowing golf carts to be driven within the city Day only? Would turn signals be required? Lights? Would the driver need a valid driver’s license? How old must the driver be? Are there streets on which carts would be prohibited such as Highway 14/Hersey Street?

City Attorney Schroeder recorded the wishes of the Councilors and will submit an ordinance at the next meeting on the regulation of golf carts being driven within the City of Beloit.

The last item of business for the evening concerned the City’s website. The current website has numerous limitations and was outdated a few years ago. Researching new vendors, Rabe discovered Civic Plus a Kansas website developer. Rabe demonstrated three of the webpages developed by Civic Plus. Their ease of access and superiority over the current city of Beloit’s webpage was obvious. As a bonus, the cost of a Civic Plus website was considerably less that the current provider.

The Council gave Rabe approval to work toward the change in vendors with the goal of having a better, faster, and more attractive web page for the City of Beloit.

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Beloit, KS 67420, USA